After this book was in the stores for a while a reader commented on the internet something to the effect “What’s up with the title? There’s no stone in the book.” I want to address this by saying the original title was Medusa’s Glance and was changed by my editor for marketing reasons.
My degree from George Washington University is in international affairs with an emphasis on the Middle East and Africa. Given my lifelong fascination with Africa, thanks in part to reading everything Wilbur Smith has ever written, and the fact that so much of the world’s mineral wealth is found there, I knew it was time Mercer head to the Dark Continent. Setting a book in Africa also gave me the excuse, and tax write-off to sightsee from Cairo to Nairobi.
If Mercer was going to go to Africa there was only one thing I knew he had to do and that’s find the Legendary King Solomon’s Mine. But again that would have been too straight forward. To muddy the waters I needed something else. I had just heard a theory that the Ark of the Covenant was in a monastery in Ethiopia, taken there by the son Solomon had with the Queen of Sheba, and guarded there for thousands of years. I had my second plot element, which allowed me to bring in another set of villains, Israeli extremists. And while I hate the old ‘kidnap a friend to motivate the hero to do something’ cliché I was forced to use it here in order to launch Mercer on his adventure.
The number one comment I received about The Medusa Stone concerned Mercer and Salome crawling their way through he ancient mine workings and Mercer becoming stuck. It gave nightmares to the most mild claustrophobic and I have to admit the night I thought up that scene I had to get out of breath and take a couple of deep breaths myself because I was certain I was going to suffocate under the blankets.
It was after I sold this book and an as yet unwritten novel to New American Library that I hung up my hammer, quit carpentry, and became a full-time author, proving that indeed dreams do come true.
